1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a control method and the like for specifying a lesion area in a medical image, such as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) image or a computed tomography (CT) image.
2. Description of the Related Art
During these years, studies aiming to automatically detect lesion areas from medical images are taking place. In Japanese Patent No. 3046326, for example, a method for identifying a boundary of a lesion area using each of a plurality of pixels of a medical image and surrounding pixels and presenting a result of the identification as a candidate area for the lesion area is disclosed.
In addition, in Suzuki, Shouno, Kido, “Analysis for Deep Convolutional Neural Network Feature with Diffuse Lung Disease Classification”, Technical Report, Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving (MPS), 2015, 2015.29: 1-6, a deep learning technique, which has been producing excellent results in a field of image recognition, is applied to identification of lesions of diffuse lung diseases, and a technique for identifying a normal area and a plurality of types of lesion area is disclosed.
In Kazuki Kozuka, et. al, “Development of Similar Case Retrieval Technology for Supporting Medical Image Diagnosis and Education of Various Lung Diseases (Special Talk 1, Computer Assisted Diagnosis and Therapy Based on Computational Anatomy, etc.)”, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) Technical Report, Medical Images (MI), 2014, 113.410: 139-142, a system that retrieves similar images for twelve types of lesion is disclosed.